International

What is OAR and why are Russia not in PyeongChang 2018?

RUSSIA will be represented at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang but their flag will not fly and their athletes will have OAR – not RUS – after their names.

The Russian doping scandal first emerged from the McLaren Report, an independent report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that identified more than 1,000 Russian competitors who had befitted from a state-sponsored cover-up of athletes who were using performance enhancing drugs.

The first part of the report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was released in July 2016 but many sports still allowed Russians to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

However, the second part of the report which was published later in 2016 triggered a massive number of International Olympic Committee (IOC) investigations into Russian athletes and the Russian Olympic Committee was immediately suspended from PyeongChang 2018, with major suspicion also raised over doping at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

The IOC ruled that Russian athletes with a consistent history of drug testing and no history of doping would still be allowed to compete, albeit without the Russian flag or under the auspices of the Russian nation.

Instead those athletes will be represented by the “Olympic Athlete from Russia” logo on their uniforms and the Olympic anthem will be used if they are to win any medals.

Initially, 500 Russian athletes were presented to the IOC for consideration, 111 of whom were immediately dismissed.

However, 169 athletes were eventually invited to compete under the OAR banner – but that number could still rise.

A specific investigation into the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games and allegations of doping during the olympiad handed lifetime bans to 43 Russian athletes.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned 28 of those and partially upheld 11 more appeals.

But 13 of those 28 athletes have now applied to compete at PyeongChang 2018 – requests that have been turned down. (Source: Express.co.uk)

How the TPP deal injects a new dynamic at NAFTA talks

Canada’s decision to sign onto a major multinational trade agreement without the United States added a dramatic new wrinkle to the NAFTA process Tuesday just as negotiators gathered for a crucial bargaining round.

January 12, 2018

The new Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement brings Canada into a new, sprawling trading bloc with standards not always obviously compatible with the goals of its superpower next-door neighbour.

It allows more content into automobiles from non-free-trade partners like China — at the very moment that the United States is trying to achieve the exact opposite in NAFTA, with tougher rules to keep out Chinese and other Asian parts.

Both supporters and detractors of the TPP pact predicted that this major liberalization of trade in auto parts with Asia will wind up at the NAFTA table somehow.

A Canadian auto-parts lobby group delivered a scathing reaction.

November 14, 2017

Flavio Volpe of Canada’s Auto Parts Manufacturers’ Association said the TPP agreement paves the way for more Chinese content in Canadian cars, at the moment Canada’s most important customer, the U.S., has made clear its goal of reducing Chinese imports.

He said it’s especially problematic in the midst of sensitive NAFTA negotiations.

“This could not be a dumber move at a more important time,” Volpe said in an interview. (Source: CTV)

The false alarm about a ballistic missile strike that terrified Hawaiians on Saturday showed Donald Trump’s policy on North Korea is wrong, a Democratic US representative from the state said on Sunday.

“What makes me angry,” Tulsi Gabbard told CNN’s State of the Union, “is that, yes, this false alarm went out and we have to fix that in Hawaii but really we’ve got to get to the underlying issue here, of why are the people of Hawaii and the US facing a nuclear threat coming from North Korea?

“And what is this president doing, urgently, to eliminate that threat?”

Trump was on the golf course in Florida when the alert went out on Saturday morning, Hawaiian time. The alert text read: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

“It was definitely kind of a panic zone,” Ashley Trask, 39 and from Kauai, told the Guardian. “Everyone knows you have about 15 minutes until detonation and no one knows where it will land.”

Family members “called us and they were crying because they realized they wouldn’t have made it to us”, Trask said.

Beth Ann Brooks of Haleiwa said she and her husband sheltered in their bathroom with their children.

As tension between the Trump White House and nuclear-armed Pyongyang has risen, Trump trading public insults with Kim Jong-un and bragging about the size of his “nuclear button”, fears that North Korea could reach US territory with a nuclear weapon have surged. (Continued: The Guardian)

Donald Trump threatens to cut ‘billions of dollars’ in aid to countries over UN Jerusalem vote

Donald Trump has threatened to withhold billions of dollars in aid from those nations which criticise his controversial decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

December 7, 2017

In a raising of the stakes over the US’s move to recognise Jerusalem and shift its embassy there – something long requested by Israel and their conservative supporters in the US – Mr Trump said he could penalise those countries that voted against the move at the UN.

Previously, the US’s UN Ambassador Niki Haley had warned the US would would be “taking names” of any countries who supported a resolution criticising Washington’s actions. A vote is scheduled to take place on Thursday after the US on Monday vetoed a vote by the UN Security Council that would have demanded Mr Trump reverse his decision.

The Associated Press said Mr Haley had written to most of the 193 UN members states warning of possible retaliation. She said the President was taking the matter personally.

Speaking to members of his cabinet on Wednesday, Mr Trump said he liked what Ms Haley had spelled out. “For all these nations, they take our money and then vote against us. They take hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of dollars and then they vote against us,” Mr Trump said. (Source: The Independent)